Finished three books, but the one I recommend is THE TRUE AMERICAN

I finished these mostly while cruising in the Caribbean.  I thought Chaos and Order by Stephen Donaldson was exciting and nerve-racking, I should have known that Inferno would not be relaxing.  However, I have faith that Dan Brown's books will end on an up note.  I really have no such faith in Stephen Donaldson.  He will kill off great characters willy-nilly with no regard for the reader's sensibility.  That said, Inferno was a great ride and asked an important question.  And it may have come up with the only tenable solution, though I may already be too late, even for that.

Then I returned to Lost Scriptures by Bart D. Ehrman to read The Acts of Peter.  This is mostly about a struggle for supremacy by a magician named Simon and Peter which brings Peter to Rome to confront the imposter and prove that Peter is the one acting with the power of God, not with deception.  This final confrontation will, of course, be what leads to Peter's death.  Ultimately, I could not understand why this was not included in our new testament.  It does not contradict anything there or the spirit of the Bible.  Peter acts in Jesus' name and does great things while keeping his personal humility.



Next was Foreign Body by Robin Cook.  This was pretty calm, believe it or not, after Chaos and Order, and Inferno.  Once again, I trust Robin not to kill off the main character, so I could lean back and enjoy the story.  After losing her Grandmother during elective surgery in India, a young woman discovers two other deaths in very similar circumstance and calls her friend Laurie Montgomery, now Mrs. Jack Stapleton, to help her.  They both travel to India to find something much amiss.  I always enjoy Robin Cook, though this was not a scary as some.



Now for the book I most highly recommend.



Most of us in Texas remember an attempted murder and two murders of gas station attendants who looked foreign shortly after 9/11.  The perpetrator said he was trying to kill Arabs in revenge for 9/11.  However one of the murders and the attempt was of Pakistanis and the other murder was of a Hindi from India.  This is the story of the murderer and his attempted victim.  The original incident at the beginning of the book happened three blocks from where I was living at the time, indeed where I had lived for 24 years.  I recognize many of the places and names in the book.   It is, surprisingly, a story of redemption and forgiveness and work on the part of the victim to try to break the cycle of hatred and violence caused by ignorance in America.  It embodies much of my philosophy about life and the basic goodness of human beings.



Last night I started a young adult novel by L. J. Smith.  It is the second book in her Secret Circle series,  The Captive.  This is about a group of young witches in a small town called Salem  who are attempting to control the wildest of their group while also attempting to rein a mysterious evil and solve, so far, two murders.  I like the characters and this author very much though the problems are complicated by much teenage angst, which most adults would like to just shake them out of!